Something To Prove
by otherhawk
Summary: Drunken bets, a two day deadline and a million dollars. How did he get into this again? More importantly, how is he going to get out of it?


**A/N: For InSilva. For many, many reasons of sentiment. There are a thousand things I want to thank you for mate and a thousand things that wouldn't be nearly so wonderful without you. But you already know all that.  
**

**A/N2: Of course, you could have read it _last _night if you weren't so busy plotting with my wife.  
**

* * *

In Linus' defence, he really had been very drunk when he took the bet. Not to mention that they'd ganged up on him, they really had. They'd just kept talking and talking until he was backed into a corner and there was nothing to do but agree.

And don't forget, he _was _right.

* * *

It had all started just after the Florentine job. Somehow he'd wound up sitting with Turk, Virgil, Frank and Yen, all of them trapped listening to Larry Gently's never-ending stories of the good old days.

"You young folks don't know you're born," he told them, waggling his finger at them sternly and nearly pouring his triple whisky all over the floor. "In my day grifting was an art. A vocation, even. Young men, roaming the world, living on their wits, moving from town to town, knowing no one would help them. You succeeded or fell on your own, back then. You stole for your supper or else you starved. Nowadays it's all _technology_ and _cellular telephones _and children who treat the life like it's any other job."

He was looking right at Linus when he said that.

Linus bristled. "I don't think – " he began, because this smarted a little and he didn't care _if _they owed Larry for the loan of the original Bentley, he still didn't need to stand here and be told he couldn't do his job.

" – Danny Ocean and that partner of his were the last of the greats," Larry went on nostalgically. "The very last of the true grifters, they were."

Linus blinked and resisted the urge to point out that Danny and Rusty had been very much alive the last time _he'd _seen them, And that had been ten minutes ago when they'd borrowed Basher to help them make margaritas using the dry ice machine.

Linus was still waiting anxiously for the bang.

"They knew how to stand on their own two feet," Larry went on.

"Four feet," Yen muttered.

"No one's ever going to match up to them again," Larry went on, shaking his head mournfully. "Not in this day and age. You might as well not even _try_."

And that was aimed directly at Linus again, and he wouldn't mind so much but Frank was nodding in drunk, sage agreement.

Shortly after that there was a mild explosion and shortly after _that _there were many, many margaritas.

On reflection, that might have been the mistake.

* * *

Later found him railing drunkenly to Basher, Frank, Yen and the twins.

"I mean, where does he get off saying 'm not a proper conman?" he demanded. "I've paid my dues. I've sold the Golden Gate Bridge jus' as often as anyone."

"I know, I know," Basher agreed soothingly, swaying slightly. He'd been heavily involved in the early margarita experiments. It was a wonder he hadn't gone blind. "Larry talks a load of bollocks sometimes. You...you mustn't let it go to your...head. Heart. Thing."

"I'm a thief and I'm _just _as good as anyone else," Linus insisted. "Better. Better, even."

"You're a proper villain," Basher assured him.

Yen, who was disturbingly sober, all things considered, suggested that proper villains probably didn't wear sweater vests.

"Jus' cos I didn't starve in the streets...I started out lifting wallets jus' like everybody." He thought back to days spent on the Chicago subway. "I paid my dues."

Frank squinted doubtfully. "Yeah, but..." He trailed off.

"But what?" Linus demanded, with just a hint of belligerence.

"Nah, doesn't matter," Frank said, shaking his head.

"But _what?_" Linus demanded again.

Turk sighed. "Come off it, Linus. We've all met your parents."

He blinked owlishly.

"Are you seriously trying to tell us that there's ever been a time in your _life _when you couldn't just pick up the phone and have your Mom and Dad come running?" Virgil went on.

Well, no. There hadn't been, he supposed. "That doesn't mean anything," he insisted. "Doesn't mean I can't do what I can do."

"Sure," Turk nodded. "But you've never been left wondering where your next meal's coming from, have you? All that struggling Larry was talking about. You've never had to go through that. Tha's all we're saying."

Linus drew himself up to his full height. "Doesn't mean I _couldn't_."

After that, things kinda got out of control.

* * *

Linus woke up on the floor with a splitting headache and a piece of paper clutched in his hand.

He squinted at it miserably. Virgil's handwriting.

_I, Linus Caldwell, bet that I can be dropped into a random city I've never been to before, naked, and survive the next two days there without getting locked up or killed and without calling anyone for help. If I can't do this or if I chicken out, I agree to let Turk, Virgil and Yen call me Baboo for the rest of time._

He groaned. That was definitely his signature.

And worse still, there was an addition scratched under it in his own handwriting.

_And I'll make one million dollars._

Oh, fuck.

* * *

Linus held his jumper in front of him unhappily. Turk had already seized his pants gleefully.

"Oh, come on guys," he pleaded. "You can let me keep my boxers, right?"

"No way," Virgil insisted. "All clothes got to go. We don't know _what _you might be keeping in there."

"What do you _think _I'm keeping in here?" Linus demanded crossly.

"Well, Rusty keeps a lockpick sewn into his shirt," Frank pointed out.

This was received with all due consideration.

"He's insane," Turk decided.

Yen asked a question.

Frank shrugged. "Apparently he had a set made especially to get past airport security. Something that doesn't set off metal detectors."

"He's _completely _insane," Virgil nodded.

"Guys, I do not have a lockpick in my underwear," Linus said with a sigh.

"Well, you got a simple choice," Turk said with a shrug. "Either you take 'em off and get out that door, or else you admit you're pussying out and we all go back to Vegas. What's it gonna be...Baboo?"

Glaring, Linus stripped off his boxers and threw them at Turk's feet. "Satisfied?" he said through gritted teeth.

Yen wolf-whistled.

Frank snapped a photo.

"I hate you all," Linus said with feeling, and then Virgil flung the van door open and he was running out into a crowd of very surprised people.

He could hear them laughing behind him. He didn't bother looking round. And, despite the considerable temptation, he didn't bother making a rude gesture behind his back. His hands were otherwise occupied, after all, hiding as much of himself as possible.

Where the hell was he?

A station, judging by the noise...and by the transit police coming charging towards him. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

He swerved away hurriedly, passing under a large sign. Welcome to Salt Lake City. Huh. He supposed he should have guessed.

People were screaming and pointing and laughing, and he _knew _his face was bright red.

This had to be the worst day of his life. At least it couldn't possibly get any worse.

Fortunately the station was crowded enough that the transit cops were being left far behind. Thankfully when a naked man tried elbowing his way through a crowd, people tended to move out of the way.

All the time he was desperately searching for...

Unattended bag!

Oh, he never thought he'd be so pleased to see one of _those _in a station.

He scooped up the duffel bag as he ran past and launched himself round a corner, immediately ducking into a photo booth, closing the curtain and scrambling up onto the seat, his feet pulled up high so no one could see them.

Peering into the duffle bag he wrinkled his nose. Oh, this didn't smell good at all.

He investigated the contents squeamishly. A half dozen empty beer cans, an unopened six pack, a pair of wrinkled jeans and a suspiciously damp t-shirt that smelled of beer and...something else. Cautiously he unfolded it and discovered that it proudly proclaimed the owner to be a member of Adam's Legendary Bachelor Party, which explained a lot, really.

There was no underwear, socks or shoes in the bag. Evidently the bag's owner hadn't been planning on changing them.

Still, beggars couldn't be choosers, and with a feeling of disgust, he pulled on jeans and squirmed into the unpleasantly-warm t-shirt.

Oh, this was...not nice.

Leaving the bag where it was, he wandered out of the photo booth, and quickly turned his face away, trying to brush his hair over his eyes as he saw a couple of transit police heading towards him. He didn't think they'd got a good look at him. Not his face, anyway. He _hoped _they hadn't got a good look at the rest of him.

"Hey!" The voice didn't sound hostile, and he turned towards it enquiringly, and saw a man wearing a t-shirt just like his. "Adam sent me to round up the stragglers. Come on, the coach is waiting outside."

The transit police were coming closer.

"Sure," he agreed cheerfully.

* * *

The coach was full of loud, drunk, singing men, none of whom noticed that they didn't actually know him. They also didn't seem to notice that it was illegal to try and drag random women into moving vehicles in order to try and persuade them to strip.

Fortunately for Linus, they didn't notice when their wallets went missing either.

* * *

Approximately an hour after he'd been dropped off in Salt Lake City station, and he was relaxing in a hotel bar with a rum and coke, dressed in an expensive new suit and five hundred dollars the richer, admittedly a lot of it in one dollar bills.

Still, he hadn't done badly at all.

The suit had come all but free, courtesy of a greedy sales assistant, who'd been too busy ogling the diamond he thought he'd found to notice that when Linus had cancelled the credit card payment he hadn't actually handed over all the cash he'd counted out.

The drinks had come _completely _free after he'd had the misfortune of finding an apparently used condom on the table.

The problem was, all this was a long way away from a million dollars.

He wasn't going to make that doing all these small scores. Not in the time. No matter _how _hard he worked.

No, what he needed was something big. And that meant he'd have to do some research.

He glanced across the room and frowned.

Huh. That guy looked familiar. Was he...was he being _followed?_

* * *

The next couple of hours he spent in an internet cafe, trying to find out everything he could about Salt Lake City. First and foremost, where was the money? What was it tied up in, where did it hang out, and most of all, how could he get his hands on it?

Was all this really worth it for a stupid bet?

Dad would say no, he knew that. Dad would _never _let himself get sucked into something like this.

On the other hand, Dad would never back down either.

When he eventually found the answer, he wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

He settled on chewing anxiously on his lip and staring at the reflection in the monitor.

Was he really sure he could do this? He'd never tried anything like this on his own before.

One point two million dollars in stolen bearer bonds. Went missing a year ago after Sam Lloyd, the courier, took off for parts unknown. But he hadn't got the money. And now, reading between the lines, Linus knew why.

Well, this should qualify.

If he could get his hands on it, that was.

At first sight it seemed impossible. Unthinkable.

But lots of things had seemed impossible before.

Stealing from Terry Benedict had seemed impossible. Not getting _killed _by Terry Benedict had seemed impossible.

Of course he hadn't really had much of a part in planning those. Danny and Rusty were the ones who thought up the impossible schemes, laid out the unthinkable dreams. And he couldn't ask them for help now. He really was on his own – not that that made Frank _right _– and that was an unfamiliar feeling.

Okay.

So he couldn't ask them for help. But what would _they _do in this situation? If they were sitting on this information, needing to do something about it immediately, what would they do?

He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to see what Danny would see, trying to think what Rusty would think.

His eyes flew open.

_Oh._

Oh, that should work. If he dared.

(_Did he really dare?_)

* * *

By the time he got round to the Whatley Club, he was absolutely _certain_ he was being followed.

Most likely a friend of Turk and Virgil's, he figured. If he wasn't imagining it. Unless, of course, his reputation was now such that he got followed the moment he set foot anywhere.

That _could _happen, right?

The Whatley Club was members only and wholly exclusive. Linus had stopped off at the copyshop on the way to put together a basic identity. Roderick Bream was a member of the club in good standing. At least he was since the club was decent enough to put its letterhead and the chairman's signature on the website. Roderick might, unfortunately, not have his membership card on him, but the letter from the chairman thanking him for his sizeable donation and confirming that his dues for this year had been received, had been more than enough to get him through the door.

He spent an hour or so sipping on a tonic and lime, pretending to read a paper and watching Cuthbert Francis from across the room.

Too bad Cuthbert wasn't doing anything interesting.

He was still the best prospect.

After an hour, Cuthbert finished his drink and stood up to leave. Linus followed, hoping he was going home. If he was staying in a hotel or something this simply wouldn't work.

He was pretty sure he'd picked up his shadow again the moment he left the club and he led the man straight to Cuthbert Francis' house.

Seven feet walls, robust looking locks, motion sensors on the lawn and what looked to be a _very _imposing burglar alarm.

He hoped his shadow was as impressed as _he _was.

* * *

Survive for two days, they'd said. Linus checked into the best hotel in town using a credit card he'd borrowed from someone on the bachelor party and ordered practically _Rusty _levels of room service.

This was _easy _and he was already feeling smug.

Mind you, tomorrow would be the real test.

The smugness died away and he chewed anxiously on his lip.

Not that he was exactly confident about tonight either.

What if he was making a mistake here? The truth of the matter was that he wouldn't normally attempt something this outrageous on his own. Not with such little prep time anyway. Oh, he might go after bigger scores, but on his own and the plans would be...more conventional.

What was he even trying to prove here?

That a lifetime spent learning everything he could in order to be the perfect grifter was just as good as working his way up from nothing?

That didn't even make _sense._

He just wanted to prove himself.

That was why he'd taken the stupid bet.

That was why he'd come up with this crazy plan.

That was why he was going to go through with it.

And alright. _Not _having Danny and Rusty hear Turk call him "My sweet Baboo" was definitely a factor here.

* * *

Breaking into records offices always seemed to be just a little easier than it should be. Okay, so there wasn't much to steal here as such, but all too often it was the first step in breaking in somewhere _else._ He would have thought someone would have thought of that somewhere along the line.

Mind you it took him a good hour to find the plans he needed. Maybe they were _actually _counting on their filing system to keep out unwanted intruders.

Photocopied plans in hand, he headed back to the front window and paused.

He hadn't actually _seen _anyone following him here from the hotel, but that didn't mean they weren't there.

Best to be careful.

He left by the handy window on the opposite side of the building.

* * *

The next morning found him seriously reluctant to get out of bed.

Too many late nights. And he shouldn't imagine he'd be getting much sleep tonight either.

Coffee. That's what he needed.

He took one set of plans down to the breakfast lounge and sipped slowly on a cappuccino and watched out the window as the world went by.

After two refills when he was absolutely certain that he'd got as much out of the plans as he could, he left the hotel.

He wasn't planning on heading back. They could charge the card all they wanted.

He spent the day following Cuthbert again, which actually proved to be pretty relaxing.

A day at the races, a five star restaurant, then round to the club for drinks. He'd followed plenty of worse people plenty of worse places – he'd chosen the mark _well._

Cuthbert arrived back home some time after ten and Linus settled in to wait.

The last light didn't go off until ten after midnight, and he waited another hour before making his move.

He scaled the wall easily enough and made his way across the lawn.

Pressure pads and motion sensors, He was very careful where he put his feet.

He made his way round to the front door and stood inspecting it for a long moment. The locks, the alarm, the pinhole camera next to the doorbell – all exactly as he'd expected.

Everything was going well.

He heard the click of the safety catch behind him before he heard the cop say "Freeze!"

His hands were on his head in an instant. He _wasn't _an idiot and he really, really didn't want to get shot right now. Or ever. "This isn't what it looks like," he said, local accent in place in an instant. "I was just – "

" – shut up and turn round slowly," the cop demanded.

Linus complied.

A second later and he was being handcuffed, being read his rights, being frisked, and he squirmed away uncomfortably.

"This really isn't what it looks like," he tried again with earnest desperation. "I got a phone call telling me my wife was here, messing around with this guy Carabas. I don't know that I even _believe _it, I just want to check, you know? You can understand that, right?"

"Save it," the cop advised.

The intercom behind them buzzed. "Do you have him?" Cuthbert's voice rang out.

Another cop walked past Linus and leant in to the microphone. "Yes, Mr Frances. Everything's fine. We're gonna take this scumbag away but we'll leave a couple of officers here to get a statement."

"Mr _Francis?" _Linus repeated for the benefit of the cop. "You mean Carabas isn't even here? Well, shit."

"Come on," the first cop grunted and he was being dragged away and the hand gripping his arm was rough and sweaty, and the handcuffs were uncomfortable and it was all he could all he could do not to stumble in the dark, unlit driveway.

Sitting in the back of a cop car.

Thankfully the cops didn't seem to expect any conversation.

Linus was too busy trying not to hyperventilate.

He'd never felt quite this alone before.

* * *

The police station and they processed him, took all his personal possessions, checked his ID proclaiming him to be Roderick Bream took his fingerprints, took his statement.

He didn't know Cuthbert Francis at all. He hadn't been planning on breaking in. He'd gone to the house looking for his wife. He'd had an anonymous phone call saying that his wife was having an affair with a man called Carabas who lived in that house. He'd gone to see for himself. He wasn't going to confront them – he hated violence.

They looked at his trembling hands, his downcast eyes, his arms wrapped across his chest in a kind of self-hug, and he knew they believed him.

He hadn't _meant _to do anything wrong, and oh, God, he'd never do anything like this again, please believe him, and don't send him to jail, oh, God, please don't send him to jail.

They were convinced. And he hadn't had anything that even _resembled _a weapon on him, nothing illegal at all. They didn't have anything on him except trespass.

He'd be out on bail tomorrow if his fingerprints came back clean.

Still meant he had to spend the night in the cells. When they asked if he wanted a phone call he was more than a little tempted.

He shook his head meekly and they showed him to a cell and he sat rigidly on the bench staring blankly at the opposite wall for a long and sleepless night.

Sometimes he wondered if he was really cut out for this life.

Ever since he'd understood what Mom and Dad _really _did for a living it had been all he'd wanted.

Follow in the family tradition.

Make a name for himself.

Outshine Dad. _(And Danny. And Rusty.)_

Make them proud of him.

But at times like this, he had to wonder. Would he be _happier _in some other life? A nine to five job, something safe and predictable. Something where he wouldn't end up in jail, even just overnight.

He sighed.

Maybe he just wanted to be taken seriously.

* * *

Wasn't much chance of that the next morning, when the cops came by to let Roderick Bream out. In fact as they were getting him all signed out, they weren't even _looking _at him.

Though, admittedly that might not just be about him being a nonentity. Right when he was signing for his personal effects, the cop behind the desk started shouting and the fire alarm started wailing, and smoke was rising from the trash can in the corner.

Lots of chaos. Lots of shouting. It took quite a while before they got everything sorted and told Roderick he was free to go and they'd be in touch about his court date.

He barely got a block away from the police station before the van pulled up next to him and Turk leaned out the back, laughing. "_Hi_ Baboo!" he crowed gleefully.

Well that was just perfect.

* * *

By late afternoon they were back in the bar in Vegas, surrounded by beer, and the twins and Yen hadn't shut up _once._

"I didn't think you'd actually get _arrested,_" Frank said, shaking his head, sounding a little disappointed.

Linus shrugged and said nothing.

"Oh, man, we should have bet something better on this!" Turk said, for about the fortieth time, still grinning.

"I'm going to put this on Facebook with the naked pictures of Linus!" Virgil said cheerfully.

Yen laughed and pointed out the obvious.

Virgil scowled. "Livingston _said _he'd fix it, soon as he got a moment."

"I don't believe you got arrested," Turk said, shaking his head. "I mean, you were all like 'Oh, I can do this, I can do this, I'm just as good as the rest of the guys', and then you get _arrested? _You gotta admit, that's pretty fucking funny."

"I guess maybe Larry's got a point," Frank said gloomily.

Linus shrugged again, nonchalantly, his eyes tracking the courier as he made his way across the bar.

"Got a delivery here for Mr Roderick Bream?" the courier said, stopping at their table. "They said at the front desk he was – "

" – right here," Linus agreed, flashing the wallet lazily. "Got something for me to sign?"

"Yeah..." The courier shoved a clipboard at him and he scrawled a couple of signatures as the others stared in silence. "And here's your package," he said, as they swapped the clipboard and the package around.

"Here's something for yourself," Linus said, giving the guy a fifty.

"Hey, thanks man," the courier said, delighted, and he walked away.

"Okay..." Frank began slowly. "What gives?"

Linus smiled, enjoying the moment, and he carefully opened the box and pulled out the metal briefcase.

"Seriously, what's going on here?" Virgil demanded.

He still said nothing. He just opened the case with a flourish.

"Well, well done," Turk said sarcastically. "You've scored a bunch of magazines. Not even dirty ones."

He had. A suitcase full of glossy magazines.

Yen leaned over, poked at them vaguely, and laughed. "Shit."

Linus kept smiling and carefully picked up the first magazine.

(_Please let this work, please let this work, because right now, he was in danger of looking like a complete moron_.)

He pulled up the bottom corner of the front page and it split apart easily.

A gilt edged certificate fell out and fluttered onto the table amid deafening silence.

Frank picked it up and stared. And stared. "Ten...ten thousand dollars?" he said at last.

"There's over a hundred of them in there," he said, leaning back in his chair and grinning exuberantly.

"So you got a hundred thousand dollars!" Turk blinked.

Virgil craned his neck round and stared at his brother.

"Ten thousand," Turk corrected himself immediately. "Ten million."

"One million," Virgil said.

"One million dollars," Linus agreed, smiling smugly. "Sent directly to me, courtesy of the Salt Lake City PD."

There was a long, long pause. "Okay," Frank said at last. "Explain."

He shrugged and leaned back further, picturing in his head just how laid-back he looked. "Sam Lloyd used to courier everything this way. Mom told me, a long time ago. I found out that he'd been arrested in Salt Lake City and I put two and two together. So all I needed to do was locate the suitcase and get the cops to send it to me."

Turk was frowning. "Wait, wait, wait. That makes..._what?_"

"No, you got arrested," Virgil insisted. "You got arrested breaking into some rich dude's house. We were having you followed!"

"I know," he said, even more smugly. "You know where I was on the first night?"

They looked at each other for a long moment. "_Oh._"

* * *

_He left the hall of records by the back and looked at the plans in his hand. Not that he needed to. He'd spent enough time peering at them inside that he figured he probably had them memorised._

_You had to put a lot of thought in, if you were planning on breaking into a police station._

_He knew how the system worked. Dad had gone over most of the variants with him a hundred times before, in between helping him with his calculus homework. The calculus teacher hadn't been nearly so strict._

_On the other hand, calculus had never come in handy in his everyday life._

_The case would be stored in the evidence locker. There'd be an electronic tag on it, meaning he couldn't just walk out with it in his hand, without setting off a dozen different alarms. It would need to be scanned out, and he didn't have that kind of authority._

_But the lost property section was in the same room. Same scanner. All he had to do was move the case from one to the other and make sure he had a legitimate claim on it, and the problem was solved._

_Simple._

_Okay, so _simple_ in this case involved prising open a skylight, cutting an alarm, gingerly tiptoeing through a building with at least a dozen cops in it, and getting through three locked doors, but by the end of it he was only sweating a lot._

_He found the case. Sitting on a shelf looking dusty and innocent and the cops had no idea what was inside it. _

_No one did, except him._

_Unless, of course, he was completely misreading this whole situation and it really was full of magazines._

_Oh, that was the sort of afterthought he could _really_ do without._

_He carefully picked it up and moved it across the room. _

There.

_Evidence to lost property in one simple step._

_Now all he had to do was get out of here and get arrested._

* * *

"Ah, you see?" Turk said triumphantly. "You _did _get arrested. So none of this counts _anyway._"

"Roderick Bream got arrested," Linus said nonchalantly. "Exactly like I planned it."

* * *

_He scaled the wall in front of Cuthbert's house easily enough and made his way across the lawn. _

_Pressure pads and motion sensors, He was very careful where he put his feet. He set off the very first one. Then he set off a half dozen more, just to be sure._

_The cops would be here within five minutes._

_Now all he had to do was not get shot and convince them he had no intention of breaking into Cuthbert's place._

_That should be pretty easy. He _had _no intention of breaking into Cuthbert's place._

* * *

"No. No. No, they arrested you," Virgil said insistently. "You trying to tell us they didn't run your prints? I _know _your prints don't come back clean."

Yen nodded and said something sharp and rude.

"Oh, yes," Linus said, thoughtfully peeling the fake fingerprints off his index finger. "I forgot I was wearing these."

They'd been spare after the Florentine job. He hadn't _known _he'd need them, but he figured he might as well take them anyway, just in case.

"We said naked!" Turk yelled.

Linus shrugged. "These aren't clothes," he argued.

"It's still cheating," Turk insisted, looking around him for backup, but Yen was laughing and Frank was grinning and there wasn't a whole lot of agreement.

What was the point in playing if you weren't going to cheat? Rusty had asked him that, once upon a time, and in this case, Linus had decided to follow the advice.

"So you get arrested, your prints are clean...what happens next?" Danny asked from behind him, and Linus jumped about a foot in the air. He twisted round to see Danny and Rusty standing there, smiling at him. Somehow, he got the impression they'd been there a while.

"Oh, well, they let me go the next morning and I switch the form detailing my personal possessions for one I prepared earlier," he explained with an awkward shrug.

Danny raised his eyebrows. "Tough lift."

"There was a bit of a distraction," he explained, smiling at the memory.

* * *

_He'd spent half the night unstitching the hem of his shirt to shake out the personal property form, the matches and the little twist of paper he'd secured there. Wasn't a _lockpick _but it was what he needed right now._

_They took him out of his cell in the morning and through to the processing desk and he was striking the match behind his back, lighting the paper, and he managed to drop it into the trash bin _just _before he burned his fingers._

_After that, all he had to do was wait until the desk sergeant was suitably distracted and substitute the form in front of him for his version, claiming that in addition to his watch, a pen and his wallet, he'd _also _had a certain metal briefcase._

* * *

"Nice," Danny said with genuine approval. "Very, very nice."

Oh, God, he was blushing. He was actually blushing, and he wanted to point out how much of this plan he'd thought up by considering what Danny would do.

"Then you phoned the cops?" Rusty asked.

"First pitstop we made," Linus nodded. "Told them I'd somehow left my briefcase in all the excitement of the fire. Asked if they'd send it on to me if I had a courier pick it up."

"And they sent a million dollars straight here," Frank said, shaking his head in wonderment. "Damn, Larry was wrong. You are _good._"

He couldn't stop the grin, even if he wanted to.

"Larry Gently?" Danny grimaced. "You didn't listen to him, did you Linus?"

"He's crazy," Rusty nodded.

"He told me I was too slick to be a conman," Danny said, shaking his head. "And way back, sometime before the flood, he told Saul he was too emotional to be a grifter."

"He told _me _I was too pretty," Rusty added.

"To be fair," Danny pointed out mildly. "I don't think he meant you were too pretty to be a conman. Think it was more just a personal remark."

Rusty glanced sideways at him and Linus didn't know half of what was in that look but he was glad it wasn't focused on him.

He had other things to think about though. "Wait, you mean I didn't have to do any of this?"

Danny shrugged and Rusty grinned, and they sat down at the table and Danny signalled for more drinks. "What have _you_ got to prove?" Danny asked with interest and Linus felt a warm glow inside.

"He didn't prove anything!" Turk howled. "He did get arrested and he lost the bet!" He turned on his brother. "This is your fault."

"Me? You're the one who said Joey could follow Linus."

"Well, if you hadn't – "

" – hey, I'm not the dumbass who – "

Linus listened to the squabbling and smiled.

Some days life was just fantastic.


End file.
